Archives News 2008
October 2008
Volunteers Program
The Archives' volunteer program is now officially underway. Our new Volunteer
Co-ordinator, Amalijah Thompson, has prepared guidelines and an information
booklet for potential volunteers and has been assessing projects suggested by
Archives staff. Four volunteers have started work on projects to make the
collections of the Archives more accessible to researchers. Amalijah can be
contacted on 6125 0143 Monday to Wednesday or at
amalijah.thompson[at]anu.edu.au.
Pacific Research Archives
Several important collections have been transferred from the Pacific History
Room at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies to the Pacific Research
Archives:
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Research notes of historian Ethel Drus on Fiji
Papers of Richard Gilson on Samoa and the Cook Islands
Papers of Dr Norma McArthur on Pacific Island population
Further papers of Professor Jim Davidson
Two collections have also been transferred by the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau:
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Papers of Rev. Neville Threlfall on the Methodist Church in Papua New
Guinea
Research papers of Gavin Daws, author of A Dream of Islands: Voyages
of self-discovery in the South Seas: John Williams, Herman Melville,
Walter Murray Gibson, Robert Louis Stevenson, Paul Gaughin
Papers of linguist Dr Tom Dutton particularly relating to Papua New Guinea have
been donated to the Archives. Papers of the late Brian Brogan, formerly a Visiting
Fellow with the ANU College of Business and Economics, include papers relating
to development programs in Asia and the Pacific.
Pacific Archivist Karina Taylor gave presentations at a number of conferences:
the Society of European Oceanists conference in Verona, the South Pacific
Symposium at the Australian Embassy in Vienna, and the International
Conference on the History of Records and Archives in Perth. The Archives new
brochure publicising the collection was also distributed widely, including at the
meeting of the Pacific and Regional Branch of the International Council on
Archives in Kuala Lumpur in July.
Exhibitions
The Archives participated in the Vivid: National Photography Festival with one
hundred exhibitions in fifty venues around Canberra, presenting Hard Labour in
our reading room. The exhibition, curated by archivist Margaret Avard, depicts
the manual labour of man and beast: hauling timber, wool and wheat on the land,
on the waterfront and in mines and factories. It features the work of Harold
Cazneaux, Sam Hood, Noel Rubie and many anonymous recorders of working
conditions from the 1880s to the 1930s from the collections of Adelaide
Steamship, Dunlop Rubber, Unilever, Tooth and Company, Dalgety Australia,
CSR Limited and the Waterside Workers Federation. Some visitors to the
exhibition were planning to visit all the photographic exhibitions as part of the
Festival.
Annual lecture
Michael Piggott, University Archivist at the University of Melbourne, delivered
the 7th annual lecture sponsored by the Archives and the Friends of the Noel
Butlin Archives Centre on 16 September. His topic was 'Alchemist
Magpies: Collecting Archivists and Their Critics' and a podcast of the lecture is
available. There was a full house of Canberra archivists and friends of the
Archives for the lecture.
Presentations
University Archivist Maggie Shapley presented a session at the International
Council on Archives Congress in Kuala Lumpur on the development of the
booklet Archives Matter!, a joint publication of the Australian Society of
Archivists and the Council of Australasian Archives and Records Authorities. She
also spoke at the Australian Society of Archivists conference in Perth on
'Marketing Archives in the Digital Age' and presented a case study in a workshop
about the conversion of the University Archives from an accession to a series
system of archives control. Maggie also wrote a chapter on accessioning for the
reference work Keeping Archives (3rd edition) recently published by the
Australian Society of Archivists.
Archivist Pennie Pemberton has spoken at three workshops for Link-Up case
workers organised by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Studies.
Additions to the Noel Butlin Archives Centre
The Archives has recently acquired an important part of Australia's documentary
history in the 'Improvements Book' for Wave Hill Station in the Northern
Territory. The loose-leaf register has a page for each and every structure on the
station including sheds, the meat safe, the laundry, windmills and fences. There is
a floor plan or map for each structure, details of building materials and in many
cases a black and white photograph. It dates from the 1950s and 60s.
A recent accession has been files and publications relating to Australian media
companies, maintained by Peter Dobrijevic, a media analyst with ABN AMBRO
Australia Limited, BNP Equities Australia Limited and Salomon Smith Barney.
They provide a unique viewpoint on changes in the media industry for the period
1992-2005 and include prospectuses, annual reports, briefings and transcripts of
conversations (restricted at this stage).
New acquisitions for the University Archives
The University Archives recently received records of Professor Dennis Pearce,
ANU College of Law, relating to the 1985 review of Australian law courses.
Professor Colin Campbell, former Professor at the Department of Political
Science at the University of British Columbia and in 1988 a Visiting Fellow at the
Research School of Social Sciences, donated transcripts of interviews he
conducted with senior public servants in the 1980s for his book 'Political
Leadership in an Age of Constraint'. There are also untapped follow-up interviews
conducted more recently.
May 2008
Pacific Research Archives
Pacific Archivist Karina Taylor has acquired the following collections for the
Pacific Research Archives:
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Tapes and field diaries of Professor Roderic Lacey from research on the
Enga in Papua New Guinea, 1970s
Digital images of Ocean Island (Banaba) from a number of donors
Colour slides of food production in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, 1960s,
taken by dietitian Nancy Hitchcock
Pacific journals from the collection of Professor Gerard Ward are available for
reference in the Archives reading room:
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Journal of Polynesian Society, 1955-1994
Pacific Islands Monthly, 1961-1968
Pacific Studies, 1979-1999
A number of Pacific researchers have responded to an invitation to deposit their
collections in the Archives. With the support of our partners, the ANU Pacific
Centre, the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, the ANU Library and the National
Library of Australia, important collections of Pacific research materials will
become available to scholars in the future.
Exhibitions
Material relating to the Colonial Sugar Refining Company Limited's involvement
in sugarcane growing and milling in Fiji from 1881 to 1974 is on display in the
Menzies building. The contents of the exhibition have been digitised and will
feature in an online exhibition.
Photographs from the Archives are also on display in the following exhibitions:
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Max Dupain on Assignment, National Archives of Australia, Canberra
Sydney's Pubs: Liquor, Larrikins and the Law, Justice and Police Museum,
Historic Houses Trust, Circular Quay, Sydney
Presentations
Archivists Margaret Avard, Dr Pennie Pemberton and Maggie Shapley attended
the National Archives' family history day, 'Shake Your Family Tree'. The album
of photographs of Canberra in the late 1940s (also online), produced in multiple
copies to attract overseas academic staff to move to the new Australian National
University, was popular. Many visitors recognised the schools, shops and other
buildings featured to reassure prospective employees of the facilities the national
capital offered at the time. Two new guides for family history research in the Noel
Butlin Archives Centre and the University Archives were prepared and have been
added to the website.
University Archivist Maggie Shapley presented two sessions at the recent
UNESCO International Memory of the World Conference in February. She spoke
about what it has meant to the Archives to have one of our major collections, the
records of the Australian Agricultural Company, listed on the Australian Memory
of the World Register. The second presentation at the Preservation Planning
workshop at the National Archives concentrated on the measures that a small
archives can take to ensure the preservation of its collections.
At the Fenner School of Environment and Society's recent symposium 'The
Future of the Past', Maggie Shapley spoke about records of the pastoral industry
that the Archives holds, including records of pastoral stations throughout New
South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory. Records relating to past
land use and climatic conditions are becoming increasingly popular as first-hand
evidence of changes to climate and landscape.
Additions to the Noel Butlin Archives Centre
Recent donations and acquisitions include:
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Director's reports of the Scottish Australian Investment Company Ltd,
1840-1870, from Trent University, Ontario, Canada
Diaries and files of Alexander Roby, Managing Director of metal smelter
and alloy manufacturer, OT Lempriere and Company Ltd
Papers of Professor Marian Sawer on the removal of the marriage bar on
women in Commonwealth employment
Research material of Liz Ross relating to the Builders' Labourers
Federation
Images of properties owned by the New Zealand and Australian Land
Company donated by Bob and Yvonne Webster
Minutes and correspondence of the Tasmanian branch of the Liquor,
Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union and predecessors
New acquisitions for the University Archives
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The Grant of Arms to the University issued by the College of Heralds in
1954
Minutes and agenda papers of the Research School of Social Sciences
Faculty Board, 1966-2005
Master set of the student publication Woroni, 1954-2006
Student course materials from the Faculty of Law, 1988-2006
Reports and papers of the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing,
2000-2007
Research papers of Dr Nigel Wace, former head of the Department of
Biogeography and Geomorphology
A major documentation project on the University Archives has been completed,
with information and item lists compiled for over 300 series of records. The
largest series at 200 shelf metres is the Central Files multiple number series which
ran from 1950 to 2000 and includes records of the Canberra University College
back to 1930. The updated List of Holdings is arranged by the creator of the
records, either a University organisational unit or a person, and is available on the
Archives website.